
46 fouinai for the Education of the Gifted
removed themselves from established everyday discourses and envi-
ronments to improve their productivity. Usually they escaped daily
routines, and the initial but substantial part of their creative work
was conducted backstage, where professors were able to create a
comforting, familiar atmosphere. Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) concept
of flow portrayed well the participants' experiences of the creative
process. Csikszentmihalyi developed the theory of optimal experi-
ence based on the concept of flow: the "state in which people are so
involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the expe-
rience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost,
for the sheer sake of doing it" (p. 4). Riikka illustrated how organiz-
ing, writing, and reorganizing thoughts took time, but the academy
professorship allowed her to forget the time while working.
Whereas, Kalle described it thusly:
I am thinking about theory all the time. It is hard to say when
I am working and when I am not. Time just passes. I do not do
anything else. On one hand, it appears that I am doing many
things; but, on the other hand, I am only working.
Among Kalle, Reijo, and Riikka, ideas appeared in the garden, in
the shower, in the airplane, in dreams, and so on. Scientists freed
their minds and allowed time and space for new ideas to appear. The
"creator must suspend conscious ego control to dip down deep into
'primary process' thinking—the process of fantasy, daydreaming,
wishes, and irrationality" (Simonton, 1994, p. 95). Weisberg (1988)
referred to Kekule's dream where Kekule found the solution of the
structure of benzene in his dream. Previous research and experi-
ences of these participants illustrated that "the richness of associa-
tions,
intuitions, imagery, and dream-like thinking" (Simonton,
1994,
p. 98) was necessary to create successful solutions to the prob-
lems.
Dreams and daydreams became part of an incubation process
for fruitful research. During the incubation, creators, such as Kalle
and Reijo, played with alternative solutions and multiple dis-
courses, while at the same time evaluating the value of various solu-
tions to their work (Sawyer & Csikszentmihalyi, 1994; Wallas,
1988).
The incubation stage took time (Patrick, 1988); it lasted hours
or years, until a person's mental map of the solution became ready.
In addition to being sensitive to the problems and a variety of solu-
tions,
it was important to aim toward finding beauty, looking for
"beautiful solutions," for example, in the role of painter. Some sci-
entists, like Kalle, were not satisfied until the problem or solution
had reached the beautiful shape of thoughts. The play with thoughts
was an important and motivating part of the creativity game.
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